I Now Pronounce You Fit to Fight!

They really don’t exaggerate when they compare that picture of Gerard Butler’s sexy Sparta mouth screaming profanities in 300 to the local train situation in Mumbai.

It’s been some time for me travelling this mode of commute, but today just pinned the tail on the donkey. Note to self: Must carry oxygen mask the next time I decide to get on the slow train from one end of the city to the other, during the peak rush hour.

There was a point when I was so consumed by the sea of human bodies around me that I thought I’d just picture blackness and faint – but you gotta be strong, eh, I told myself. Besides there was no room for dramatics, someone would have whacked me with a plastic bag or umbrella even if I inched a step anywhere.

My intestines felt so squirmy being crushed between the weight of a heavyweight woman and the handlebars on the seat; and my disgusted expressions with all the sweat odor driving up my olfactory senses only deterred the ladies to not let me breathe further.

I took my earphones off once when Mahim junction strayed past the platform and realized there was a lady yelling behind me in crass Hindi saying, “Isko bolo ‘sift’ karne! Lower Parel se khadi hai nalayak!”

Like really?! She just ruined the JT Mirrors moment I was having on my berry music player thinking about all the crazy I could get up to.

No amount of my two month long training in Tai Chi or Kung Fu has ever come of use at such a dire time.

Getting off at Andheri was another obstacle race on its own. Screaming infants and beings a hundred times my size lambasted the sizable gates of heaven and I was literally bulldozed and thrust off the train as I propelled into the arms of breathing space again.